


From This Day Forward

by annieke



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-18 19:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annieke/pseuds/annieke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag to 3.06.<br/>Didn't think I was going to write one, yet here it is, because I don't think Danny could so easily walk it off.</p>
<p>The end of the night brings a little clearer realization to Danny. and Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From This Day Forward

At the first red light, it hits him, and Danny feels himself start to tremble.

"No, no. No. You're not doing this, not now. Get it together, goddamnit. You can do this. You are doing this. Don't think about it. Do not fucking think about it. Think about tonight. Think about Grace. Your amazing daughter, Grace." He did. Was. Is--thinking about her, even while talking to himself aloud in the car and not caring if anyone waiting at the light next to him is watching as he tries to pull himself back from that edge.

The father/daughter dance had been the absolute best distraction he'd needed, not to mention having the chance to hold his daughter and twirl her around the room for two hours. She'd looked beautiful; she'd looked quite a bit like her mother, actually, which held him still for a few seconds when he'd initially escorted her to the dance floor. The light had caught an angle of her profile that made her still softly rounded face a bit more mature. A bit more like she'll probably look when she's grown into a woman, a little more like Rachel, and that alone almost brought tears welling. She's growing up so fast.

It tears at him that he might have lost her today. 

Which makes him start to shiver again. "Jesus, Williams," he admonishes himself and cracks open a window to let the night air roll over him. "Get a fucking grip. You're here. You're good. You're fine. Everything's fine." Yeah. Except everything is not fine, and he knows it. Knows that just taking a deep breath could have changed the outcome of today. Just a sliver of movement, a flinch, a sneeze, and it could have been over. It could have been the end of everything--just like before.

It had been years since he'd told anyone about that day, that Grace, that senseless act of tragic violence that had played out beneath the shadow of an even more unspeakable horror. In the end, he'd waited with Grace until someone finally registered his radio call and came to help, but her life had already bled away even before he'd run into the street. 

Those that finally got to them told him what had happened, what the billowing smoke was about. He will never forget the smell, the taste of ash or the emptiness of Grace's sightless eyes. He knows that's the day he lost his faith in God.

For hours afterward all he could do was hold the sonogram picture in his hand like a lifeline, trying to smooth out its crumpled edges and hope he could somehow get word through to Rachel to let her know he was okay. Alive. Unlike his partner. Unlike Grace. Unlike thousands.

When she was older, he told his Grace of her. Who she was and what she meant to him and why his Grace was given her name, and there were times over the years when he thought he sensed Grace's presence with him, watching out for him. For his baby. Wonders if she's been with him today, if she's the reason he decided to tell Steve her story when he hadn’t given voice to those events in so long. If somehow she was guiding him through all of it until it was over and he could walk away. Safe. Alive.

It's a happy ending. They're all okay. Sound. In one piece. Max won't have to go searching for meaty puzzle pieces to put together--or have to look for signs of his vaporized remains before they get caught and blown aloft on an island breeze.

Which forces a harsh giggle from him, and he slaps a hand across his mouth and bites into the thickest part of his thumb until it hurts. Does his best to swallow down the rest of the emotional whirlwind that's on the rise in his gut because it's so, so not anywhere close to laughter that's going to erupt if he lets himself go.

Home. He just needs to get home. Just needs to stop thinking about what could have been.

Grace had been positively beaming, and he tells himself to focus on her, on tonight, on replaying the evening from the beginning so he doesn't finally fall over the edge where he's been teetering for most of the night. She'd had such a good time--with him, with her friends who were so dressed up, looking older in a way he didn’t want to contemplate too deeply. She was so beautiful, radiating happiness and youth and spirit as she'd twirled in her new dress and he couldn't even try to contain the pride and joy and immeasurable love he'd felt. To think he'd fathered this amazing person. She is his life; he would give her the world…

And he almost lost her. Lost everything. Could have missed this forever. Borrowed time. Again. Doesn’t want to search for whys. Doesn't want to run what ifs through his head and yet he knows he could have been giving Grace an empty promise. It could have been all over in just seconds. No goodbyes. No nothing. Just gone. That quick--

Stop it. He has to stop.

He swipes a hand across his eyes, blinking away the haze of halos surrounding the lights as he pulls into his apartment's parking lot. He's home. Thank god.

Then he sees him, Steve, leaning against his truck, looking for all the world like he's been there forever. A shadow come to life as he steps into the light.

The image of him pulling away from Steve flashes through Danny's head. He'd walked away. He'd pulled away from that embrace, away from Steve, but for the life of him, and it almost had been, he couldn't have turned around in that moment, even while feeling Steve's eyes on his back. Those eyes. Everything Steve felt was right there in his eyes, so many unspoken words and feelings between them, suppressed for so long until he saw them all right there on Steve’s face--and Danny couldn't open that up then. Not then.

Now, he stands by the side of his car, leaning a little onto it and just watching Steve watch him.

"Hey," Steve says.

"Hey," he replies with a push forward to get himself moving. Toward Steve.

"I couldn't--" Steve's words start and stop abruptly, and Danny can't help but hear the catch in his voice. "I had to see if you were, ah--" a pause, then, "How was the dance? Did Grace love it?"

"Yeah, I think--she--" he begins, that same catch snagging his own voice and he lets loose a sound he hopes comes across more like a laugh than a choked off cry because honest-to-god right now he could split open either way--and he can't think about that so just keeps...talking. "It was good--great. She looked--like ten going on twenty and I gotta tell you, I do, that I don't know what I would have done if I had missed this, and I'm not at all sure how I'll ever be able to let her go when she grows up and leaves me to get mar--" He can't get any more words out, really is now choking as they dam in his throat and then Steve's arms are there, wrapping around him, clutching at him and he's clutching Steve in return like he's all there is in this world to hold on to--and somehow, somehow Danny knows that is exactly what is true.

Steve's face is all there was when Danny thought it was going to end. Those eyes staying with his, holding his as that red light started its frenzied flashing and Danny's heart frantically raced along with it--and still Steve wouldn't leave. He was so sure, Danny was so sure the end was coming and was feeling so overwhelmed by a rush of crazed fear and desperation and sheer gratefulness that this man who should have left, who he asked to leave, didn’t. Was going to see him through to the end.

Which had filled him with a torrent of emotion that he couldn't yet face. He'd had to get to his daughter; the promise he'd made to her was the only thing keeping him from losing it entirely. He'd had to let go of Steve and walk away without looking back. Not once. He couldn't because if he had, if he'd caught Steve's eyes, he doesn't know if he could have pieced enough of himself back together to go to Grace.

Now, though, under the deep of the night and the faint golden beams of the parking lot's lights, with his arms holding Steve up as much as Steve is absolutely shoring up him, he can let the remains of this day wash over and under and out of him, and know they're going to be okay. Okay together.

Steve's breath is warm on his neck, his lips pressing soft kisses against his skin, and Danny tucks his head into Steve's chest and feels everything he's held in his heart for this man begin to unfold. He presses up against Steve, half aware of a faint measure of vibration running under his hands and he's not at all sure if it's him or Steve who's trembling, so tightens his hold, feeling Steve do the same.

A soft breeze caressed with the sweet perfume of plumeria wends around them, stirring a few of the less shellacked strands of his hair, and he turns his eyes to the night sky and whispers, "Thank you, Grace."

“You think maybe we—you want to—ah, take this inside?” Steve asks, stammering a bit and it’s so Steve that Danny can’t help but laugh. He grins at Steve smiling back at him as they head to his place. He doesn’t think about this morning or ten years ago or where they each may be in other relationships because right now in this moment, with the scent of his daughter still on his hands and this man by his side, he’s just content in knowing that life is moving forward.

End.


End file.
